A Taste of Tastes to Come

Summer is (unfortunately) over.  September will sometimes hang on to the warm weather and allude to an endless summer, but the cool breezes of late carry the rigorous truth.  It's time to get back to work.  The last quarter will be a busy one for restaurateurs, many of whom are approaching the remaining months of 2012 with a double-or-nothing attitude.  Michael White has The Butterfly and Ristorante Morini on the horizon, Andrew Carmellini will add The Library in the Public Theater and a yet-to-be-named French place to his resume, and the Torrisi guys will introduce The Lobster Club and Carbone to Thompson Street.  In addition to the double features, a slew of other restaurants are opening by the end of the year and we're excited.  Here's a look at a few storefronts with news about the restaurants moving into them.

Michael White will open The Butterfly at 225 West Broadway (@Franklin Street).  His most casual spot yet, Butterfly will be a mid-century cocktail bar will classic bar food like burgers and fried chicken.  Eben Freeman will be in charge of the cocktails, which may come as a Greatest Hits of drinks he's made over the years at places like WD-50 and Eleven Madison Park.  The Butterfly will be open 7 days a week from 1130am - 1am on weekdays and 1130am - 2am on weekends.  Slated to open in December.

White's Morini Brand gets its third outpost when Ristorante Morini opens at 1167 Madison Avenue (@86th Street) in the two-story space that formerly housed Centolire.  Ristorante will be higher-end than Osteria Morini and will feature food from all over Italy, not just Emilia Romagna, as is the focus as Osteria in SoHo.  Richard Anderson from Marea will be in charge of the wine.

The ground floor will have a cafe and the spacious second story will be a white tablecloth dining room.  No opening date has been set for Ristorante Morini so we probably won't see this one by January.

Andrew Carmellini and Luke Ostrom (a partner at The Dutch and Locanda Verde) are collaborating with the folks at Joe's Pub to open The Library in the Public Theater building at 425 Lafayette Street (btwn E 4th and E 8th).  Joe's Pub has been serving food at the Public Theater since 1998.  Located on the mezzanine level, The 50 seat Library will serve classic cocktails, craft beer, and a menu put together by Carmellini.  The Rockwell Group, who designed the JetBlue Terminal and the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center at Lincoln Center, will put their touch on the 2,000 square foot space, drawing inspiration from the building's history as the former site of the Astor Library.

Once home to Chinatown Brasserie, the corner space at 380 Lafayette, just a block south of Carmellini's Library project, will soon be home to Carmellini's first French restaurant in the city.  Just as his Italian mastery is showcased at Locanda Verde, The Dutch stands as his successfull effort with American food.  Carmellini learned a thing or 10 working under Gray Kunz at Lespinnasse and AC just got back from a trip to France.  The Community Board approved the team's request for a liquor license early last week.  Damon Wise, formerly of Craft and Monkey Bar, will be the chef de cuisine.  No name or menu yet, but the space will have a cafe and a bakery on premise.  This two-story restaurant is going to be blanc chaud when it opens later this year.

Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone have two hits on their hands with Torrisi and Parm, both on the same Mulberry Street block between Prince and Spring.  This fall, the team will open The Lobster Club and Carbone on Thompson Street between Bleecker and Houston .  The success of the triple-decker Saratoga Club sandwich at Parm inspired the concept for TLC.  The sandwich shop will open next month at 169 Thompson Street with variations on the triple decker sandwich.  Mitch Hedberg would be psyched.

Carbone will open in November a few storefronts down from TLC at 181 Thompson Street.  The restaurant will follow the Italian-American theme the duo and partner Jeff Zalanznick have mastered at Torrisi and Parm.  It will be a throw back to the red sauce and regulars kind of joint with smooth waiters and (we're hoping) checkered tableclothes.  Eating at Carbone is going to be a classic "moozarell" and "proszhoot" kind of experience.

L'Apicio will be the fourth Italian restaurant in Joe Campanale's Epicurean group and will open at 13 East 1st Street (btwn Bowery and 2nd) nextdoor to Veselka Bowery.  Gabe Thompson will be in charge of the food and an opening date has been set for sometime this month.  Here's a peek inside the kitchen and a portion of the dining room:

One week before Vandaag shuttered at the end of May this year, the owners opened Woodland in Brooklyn on Flatbush and 6th Ave.  The former Vandaag space at 103 2nd Ave (@ 6th Street) will become home to Mighty Quinn's BBQ.  Mighty Quinn's is a Smorgasburg favorite; the efforts of Texas-native chef Hugh Mangum.  Mangum's smoked brisket has reached cult status in New York and will be coming out of the first Quinn brick and mortar location sometime in November.

Gabe Stulman's Little Wisco empire gets its fifth sibling with Chez Sardine opening at 183 West 10th Street (@ West 4th).  The restaurant will be Stulman's first foray into Japanese cuisine, with a menu and setting loosely inspired by casual Japanese eating and drinking establishments known as izakaya.  Without any formal training in Japanese cuisine, Fedora chef Mehdi Brunet-Benkritly will introduce us to his interpretations sometime in November.

Masaharu Morimoto is opening Tribeca Canvas in October at 313 Church Street (btwn Lispenard and Walker).  The highly anticipated bistro will showcase Morimoto's take on comfort food.  Expect onion soup dumplings, octopus balls, and crab ravioli.  The building has been in Morimoto's hands for three years and will finally open next month.  The kitchen will serve until 4am.

Harold Dieterle and Alicia Nosenzo's West Village empire is growing.  The two were originally going to open their third project in Downtown Brooklyn, but the idea was scratched and the former Paris Commune space at 99 Bank Street (@ Greenwich) was decided on to house The Marrow.  An Italian heavy wine list will pair nicely with Dieterle's meatcentric menu, a good portion of which will be cooked on a wood fired grill.  The Marrow is slated to open sometime in November.